The House Rules Committee yesterday unanimously reported Congressman Dickstein’s resolution creating a special committee to investigate subversive groups and un-American activities in the United States.
The measure now goes to the House, which is expected to adopt the resolution and name the committee in short order. When the committee is organized, it will hold hearings similar to those held three years ago under the chairmanship of Congressman John W. McCormack of Massachusetts.
The measure goes further than the last act creating an investigating committee. In addition to setting up a committee to probe un-American activities, the new Dickstein measure looks toward remedial postal legislation to prevent the use of the mails for subversive propaganda.
The Dickstein resolution authorizes the investigation of organization created “for the purpose of diffusing within the United States of slanderous or libelous un-American propaganda of religious, racial or subversive prejudice which tends to incite to use of force and violence.”
Under the terms of the bill, the committee would have the power to look into the “character, objectives, extent of operations, roster of membership and officers, sources of revenue and contribution of finances” of the organizations in question.
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